Men common victims of domestic abuse
July 2nd, 2008 by adminOne of the common themes of male-bashing feminism is that men are the source of all violence. A recent study has demonstrated that, in fact, men are frequent victims of domestic abuse at the hands of their spouses. The difference, of course, is that it is socially acceptable for a woman to be the victim, but not acceptable for the man. Thus, men are less likely to report abuse, and much less likely to be believed.
In a recent study published in the American Journal of Preventative Medicine, almost 30% of men reported abuse at the hands of their spouses (compared to approximately 44% of women). Older men who had been abused had higher rates of depression and lower overall mental health scores.
Personally, I don’t believe either of those statistics. I don’t believe that 30% of men have been the victim of *significant* abuse nor that 44% of women have. My personal opinion is that most of these surveys ask such broad questions that non-abusive behavior is being classified as abuse.
To give you an example, one of the questions is whether or not a partner has ever “hit, slapped, shoved, choked, kicked, shaken, or otherwise physically hurt you?”
Perhaps we are just more physical than other folk, but in fact my wife has hauled off and slugged me in the arm on occasion. Of course, I am eight inches taller and 90 pounds heavier than my wife, and she could pummel me all day long with me barely noticing. And she knows that. She has never knowingly caused me harm. However, if I were to strictly answer that question, I would answer “yes.” The idea that I am a victim of “spouse abuse” is simply silly, though.
Similarly, one of the questions is whether or not one’s spouse has ever “put you down” or “controlled your behavior.” Well, perhaps they’ve never heard of a “honey do” list. Any wife who doesn’t modulate her spouse’s behavior at least a little isn’t doing her job. And vice versa. In 18 years of marriage, I doubt that any couple has managed to go without at least one argument in which somebody “put” somebody “down.” I guess I’d have to answer that one with a yes as well.
So, here we are. Almost two decades of marriage, deeply in love, very supportive, and never hurt each other, but if we were to answer the questions literally, we’d both be “victims” of abuse.
Domestic violence is real. And it’s bad. But these measures are simply not realistic, and any studies of them overstate the real rates by a great amount, I suspect. Goose and gander, though. If these studies paint us men as such brutes, they don’t paint women much better.
Posted in General Medicine | 4 Comments »
July 3rd, 2008 at 11:46 am
You make an interesting point, however, one would hope that the these studies aren’t categorizing
“one slug and/or one put down” as domestic violence. By definition domestic violence is an ongoing pattern of these abusive tactics in a romantic relationship used by the abuser to control, gain power over and manipulate the victim.
If your wife hauled off and slugged you and put you down regularly during any lengthy portion of your 18 year marriage that would be a pattern and therefore she would be considered abusive.
Men don’t fear women’s violence as a rule unless the woman is holding a weapon, but IMHO they should.
It’s a myth that because a man is taller and/or heavier than his partner he can not be a victim of domestic abuse. Would we say the same if the reverse was true? Also, a 5’2″ 100 pound woman prone to violence can do some serious damage to a 6’2″ 200 pound non violent man if she chooses. Size and gender are irrelevant these days especially considering how skewed the law is in protecting victims i.e. women, against men’s violence. Do you know what happens to a guy that protects himself by restraining his abusive wife or hitting back if the police become involved? He gets arrested in most instances. He may have a restraining order placed against him, be on bond conditions when released from jail not to have any contact with his “victim,” has to stay away from his home and his children etc. If he is someone prominent in the community his reputation may be ruined and he may be labeled a wife beater. Abusers lie and female abusers are really good at manipulating the system to their advantage so things can get pretty “out of control” in these situations depending on the people involved.
Thanks for opening up this topic.
Sincerely,
Jan Brown, Founder and Director,
Domestic Abuse Helpline for Men and Women
http://www.dahmw.org
July 4th, 2008 at 2:48 pm
“…one would hope that the these studies aren’t categorizing
“one slug and/or one put down” as domestic violence. ”
One would hope that, but that’s not how the surveys seem to be structured. That’s rather my point. I suspect that if the surveys were structured to ask the question in the way you hope, then the numbers would be significantly smaller.
The problem is that these are survey questions, and the question are “have you ever been…” They are categorizing “domestic violence” in terms of positive answers to the questions.
You are right that size is not necessarily relevant when it comes to abuse — psyche is. When I trained as a forensic pathologist, we rather jokingly said that women get “one free dead husband and two free dead babies” because of the presumption that a woman would not kill her husband. For all practical purposes, a woman can walk up to her husband, shoot him, call 911 and say “I don’t know, he was doing something with his gun and I heard a noise…”
You are also absolutely correct about the issue of lying and manipulation. I had a colleague who was going through a nasty divorce. His wife accused him abusing their infant daughter and brought the daughter in covered with bruises to show it. The presumption was that the husband did it. He was in the military, and his career was essentially ruined. The only thing that kept him out of jail was the fact that he was recording his phone conversation s and the soon-to-be-ex-wife called him and bragged about beating up the child and blaming him for it — and threatened to do it again if he didn’t stop suing for custody.
That transcript got him custody of the kid, but his career was still ruined.
My post was not to imply that this kind of thing doesn’t happen, nor to minimize it when it does. I simply don’t believe the numbers when it comes to prevalence.
August 3rd, 2009 at 6:40 pm
I am a victim of spouse abuse and unless you have been a victim, you can never give correct comments or even suggestions as to what it is. Only someone who have been a victim can qualify to offer any advice. However, you are right that size, gender, race, color, or any other factors are just plain sterotypical. I have been divorced for over fourteen years and still feel the affects of that abuse. I would tell the story her but, I don’t want to relive the experience on written comments. It is a re-lievable experience on a daily basis. I don’t believe that one ever gets completely over the abuse. Let me write the survey questions. Yes, that would be the thing to do. Then yu will get a clear picture as to who is a victim. It is not only an on-going cycle of abuse, it is a life-time cycle of on-going abuse. Even when you are out of “harms way,” you still feel like you are being abused. The abuser takes your life from you. Look, I have said too much, here. I got to go.
August 3rd, 2009 at 6:53 pm
Alonzo,
That’s the distinction I’m trying to make. Real abuse is a terrible thing. My personal opinion is that broadening the defintion to mean any old thing may seem beneficial in the sense of making it seem more common (and thus more important) than it really is. However, by cheapening the definition, one also dilutes the effect. If speaking sharply once in a blue moon is “abuse,” then what distinguishes it from what you went through.
It’s a little like folk who throw the word “rape” around. Rape is a terrible thing, and when people start saying things like “rape” in a video game is the equivalent of real rape, then they are also saying that real rape is no more real than playing a video game.